A Simple Rule for Naming Your Options
Narrow-Framing, the Paradox of Choice, and why there’s one simple rule I keep in mind when naming my options about a decision.
As part of Hear from God in 40 Emails (or Less), we’re exploring the five steps that will prime you to hear from God: 1) Clarify the Question, 2) Set a Deadline, 3) Name Your Options, 4) Pray for Indifference, and 5) Ask for Guidance.
As I was nearing the end of college, I could imagine only two main options for what I could do next: Move to Japan or New Hampshire.
They couldn’t be more geographically opposite.
I had done an internship in Japan the summer before my senior year and I was invited to return after graduation, but I was also preparing for an interview during Christmas break for an unexpected job opportunity in New Hampshire.
Was I supposed to move to Japan or New Hampshire?
That’s what I wanted to know from God and, if you’re facing a decision, you could probably list a few possible options of your own—but, maybe, you’ve never written them down. After you clarify the question and set a deadline, you still need to name your options as one of the five steps that will prime you to hear from God.
Even when Jesus’ earliest followers were trying to find a new number twelve for their crew, they listed the realistic options that met the qualifications (Acts 1v23-26).
But, as you attempt to name your options for what God might say to you, I want to give you a recommendation that might feel oddly specific: If possible, list more than two but less than seven options. It’s general wisdom that I’ve learned the hard way that will help you avoid two of the most common mistakes people make when naming options.
Why You Probably Need More Than Two Options
One of the “four villains of decision-making,” according to Chip and Dan Heath in their book Decisive, is “narrowing-framing.”1 And, it’s one of the easiest mistakes to make when you’re trying to name your options.
Narrow-framing is giving God an “either-or.” It’s either this or that, God, now tell me which one to choose and I’ll do it.
You’re asking God what you should do after high school: go to college or get a job? Or, what to do about your job: keep going or quit? Or, what to do next in your relationship: propose or break up? You’re listing options like I was at the end of college: Should I move to Japan or New Hampshire?
That’s narrow-framing.
And, while it’s definitely possible that God might, in fact, lead you toward one of the two options in the original either-or you proposed to him, he might have another option in mind that you haven’t even considered. But, if you’re only looking for an answer that fits your either-or, you’re more likely to miss what God might say.
That’s why, when naming the options, in order to escape the either-or, I recommend that you try to come up with at least three initial options to set before God—if, for no other reason, than to open your imagination to the possibility that God might have something else in store for you.
One strategy that might help you is what Chip and Dan Heath call “the vanishing options test.”2 Imagine you can’t choose any of the options you’re considering, they advise, then what options are there?
For example, if you’re trying to decide what to do after high school, and going to college or getting a job weren’t options, what else could you do? What about a gap year?
Or, if you’re trying to decide what to do about your job and you couldn’t just quit your job or quietly keep going, what else could you do? Could you have a conversation with your boss about working there?
In my case, if Japan and New Hampshire were off the table, what else could I do?
By hypothetically eliminating the options at each end of your either-or, you might end up opening the possibility of other options you hadn’t yet considered—options that might very well be within the range of what God wants you to do. Do whatever it takes to come up with at least one more option, even if it feels like a stretch, before you ask for God to speak.
Why You Probably Need Less Than Seven Options
As you try to open up your options, though, don’t make the opposite mistake that I see lots of people make: listing too many options. When you have too many options, you’re more prone to encounter what many have called the “paradox of choice,” which is the paralyzing feeling of having so many options that you can’t choose one.
Have you ever heard of the Jam Experiment?3
In the experiment, researchers set up a table with twenty-four jams and another table with a mere six jams, offering a one-dollar off coupon to anyone who will approach the table and taste one of the jams. In the end, while the table with twenty-four jams proved more popular, it was the table with six jams that resulted in more purchases. More choices, it seems, left people more indecisive while less choices enabled people to be more decisive.
That’s the paradox of choice.
Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist who specializes in young adulthood, encounters this all the time in young adults who are making many of the major life decisions. She advises young adults, who are struggling with what to do for their career, in particular, to get the twenty-four flavor table down to no more than a six flavor table that reflects their actual “experiences, interests, strengths, weaknesses, diplomas, hangups, priorities” and other potential constraints on their lives.4
You probably don’t have twenty-four realistic options about what you could do about a particular decision you’re facing. When you actually sit down and start naming the options before you, you will probably discover that, given your actual life circumstances, you have far less options than you felt you had.
Constraints, when it comes to choices, can actually be a good thing.
If you’re in a season of your life when you’re wondering what you should do with your life, for 99.9% of us, becoming a professional athlete or musician is off the table. If you haven’t started playing golf, and you’re thirty, you can probably cross off “go pro in golfing” from your list of options.
If you have more than six options before you, try to narrow it down to no more than six options as you’re seeking to hear from God—or, maybe just five options with a blank for an option you might not have thought of.
More Than Two and Less Than Seven Options
Avoiding both the narrow-frame and the paradox of choice, then, I believe the sweet spot for naming your options is: List more than two but less than seven options.
Widen your options, as Chip and Dan Heath recommend, but also limit them in order to avoid the paradox of choice. In doing so, you’re doing the work of setting yourself up to hear from God.
No matter what, though, it’s essential that you leave open the possibility that God might still say something to you that wasn’t on your list of options. Be open to the unexpected option that God might show you.
Despite the two options in my mind at the end of college, there were actually other possibilities that I hadn’t considered until I could no longer ignore them—and, I’ll share the rest of that story in a later email.
In the comments, let me know: Are you prone to list too many options or too few options?
This is email 13 out of 40 in Hear From God in 40 Emails (Or Less). Start with the first email.
Chip and Dan Heath, Decisive, 18.
Chip and Dan Heath, Decisive, 57.
Meg Jay, The Defining Decade, 36.
I am definitely an either/or - this is great! I truly never looked at it this way. It's freeing, actually.
Good article Austin. It was always in my nature to go the 'either/or route' of narrow framing. But as I've matured, I am much more prone to waiting to see what God has to say about the process and as you mention, it may be something you haven't even considered.